To: LA County Board of Supervisors, the LA County Department of Animal Care and Control, and LA County Officials
Protect LA County Animal Shelters from Budget Cuts
In LA county, there are 13 animal shelters that are public and municipal, and many more that are privately owned, as the LA and SGV area is home to many pets. However, many of these animals are still at a large risk of being euthanized, due to existing issues like overcrowding, limited resources, medical care, staff, or rescue abilities.
The Los Angeles County Animal Care and Control (LACACC) has a recorded amount of around 51,332 animal deaths each year by euthanizing, meaning that 28.17% of the animals that are taken in are put to death. This large amount of deaths emphasizes the significance of the issue and calls for much more attention. Of course, a percentage of these deaths are caused by medical issues, but in many cases, a significant amount of these deaths could be prevented. As the budget of shelters are in risk of being cut even further, the significant amount of animal deaths will increase even more due to not enough funding to support these pets.
This petition is in hopes of improving the lives of pets and animals in the LA county, and hopefully further throughout California by preventing budget cuts at animal shelters, and increasing and preserving the funding to protect the lives of the animals in our communities. Stronger funding for animal shelters in LA County and programs that help improve the lives and conditions of pets, give animals more opportunities to be saved, adopted, fostered, and prevented from the outcome of euthanizing.
Why is this important?
The importance of this issue mainly lies in the ability and many possibilities of it being prevented. Since such a large amount of these euthanized deaths could have been prevented but are caused by problems like overcrowding, lack of resources, etc., with increased funding, animal shelters all across LA county can lower this statistic of animal deaths.
Some people think that the lives of shelter animals aren’t as significant, but just because they don’t have a permanent home doesn't mean their lives aren’t as valuable as any other life.
They deserve the same, equal treatment of safety, protection, medical care, and every chance and opportunity to be adopted or fostered so that they will be given the care in a loving home that every animal life should have.
There are also many reasons why animals get given up to shelters to be cared for, like personal situations or financial difficulties, which mean that without enough funding, animal shelters might not be able to take in these pets. The animals in our community depend on us to do the right thing and to advocate for their rights, supporting better outcomes and improving their lives. Every single animal deserves the right to survive and live a life that is loved.
